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Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

Hello everyone, Malphite here with a game idea I'd like feedback. Now every week on Friday I hold a weekly game at my place of residence, I am currently running a game based on Majora's Mask. Now a few weeks back I started a one-shot game with two of my players which turned out pretty well, only problem was I felt compelled to continue the game because one of my players made an interesting story for his character.

Now his character is a Barbarian Half-Orc lost from his tribe, (I offered him the ability to play full Orc because it's a 0 LA race but he declined which is fine). The Half-Orc is actually a slight reference to Grom Hellscream from the Warcraft franchise, and his tribe is called the Blackrock Clan once again reference to Warcraft. The player even made a huge detailed history for the clan, and how they operate, the clan being very honorable and would not raid for goods or loot but rather for the thrill of battle.

This tribe also aloud humans to join in it, and also kept may Half-Orcs, the tribe's alignment was described as a C/N leaning more towards good. Now I was once again ok with this, I do actually like Orcs as a race in most fantasy games and if I play one I usually play a very honorable Orc. So when the game started the Orc player began asking anyone if they had seen his tribe if he was asking for information. I told him that no one had seen them but an Orc clan was raiding the town, and nearby farmlands.

Both players headed out and came across a small camp of 5 Orcs, they quickly defeated the Orcs who were armed with Crossbows, and Longswords. There were prisoners in the camp so they freed them and after passing a search check they came across two pieces of cloth. One was tattered with the symbol of my player's clan and the other of another clan I had made the Blinding Spears. Now the player's idea of his clan gave me a good idea of having a very militant Clan which was more well equipped then standard Orc clans. Think of the Uruk-hai from the J.R.R Tolkien universe.

After finding the cloth it motivated my player to search for the base camp of the Blinding Spears in the area, and for possible members of his clan since they had the mark of his clan. After a few in game days around the nearby village of Trem, they heard rumours of an old fort and decided to check it out. Along the way they met up with some Goblins who were carrying a banner of the Blinding Spears. After a bit of conversing they discovered the Goblins' tribe, was pretty much conscript forces for the Blinding Spears and that they were indeed in the for they were heading for.

My players convinced said Goblins that they could liberate them if they helped them gain entrance to the fort. Once they arrived at the fort the Barbarian told the Evoker to wait outside well he scouted the area out. Thinking that his Half-Orc status might allow him entrance into the fort and he would then cause chaos by getting the Goblins to revolt against the Orcs. When he gets into the fort though my player quickly found himself way over his head and sprung a trap set up by the Orcs which caused some of them to come running and him intiating combat with them.

The Barbarian slew 4 of the Orcs before he was subdued by the rest of them and was brought before the leader of the Orcs in the fort. The leader was not infact the leader of the whole tribe, just a small force of them who were planning on invading the village of Trem nearby. Now for a big reveal I brought in a character from the Barbarian's tribe he was an Orc Cleric who was aiding the Blinding Spears, in preparation for said attack on the village.

The Barbarian was confused and questioned why this was happening and the Cleric simply told him that many new changes were being instituted by the Chieftain of the Blackrocks, Crawn. The new changes were to make way for a unifying of the Orc clans in two provinces of the Empire the game was set in and eventually to take them over and make a nation all for the Orcs. Of course this would be at the expense of many innocent people who would most likely be slaughtered in the uprising and subsequent war with the unfied Orc nation.

The Barbarian vowed to get revenge and stop the plot before he was thrown in the Fort's prison. The Evoker outside decided to go back to the village to try and get some of the local militia to come to the Fort to find is friend. Well this was all happening the Barbarian successfully got the other prisoners in the Fort and the Goblins to break out and revolt against the Blinding Spears. The ensuing battle in the fort was pretty epic with the Cleric escaping, and many of the Orc forces running straight into the Militia and were either captured or killed.

After that the one-shot had ended but my players begged me to continue, so I decided I would and invited some more players to join. After a few more minor adventures I've decided to bring back the Cleric as their first large villain, and place them in the defence of a town that will be raided. The opposing force will be comprised of Orcs, who will be lvl 1 warriors for the most part with a few level 2 Orcs with class levels.

The party's force will consist of the them of course, a few class level NPC "commanders", a small contingent of lvl 1-3 warriors, and a large group of conscripted lvl 1 commoners who will make up their main force. I got the idea for their army from the DMG, which will allow them to have a decent fighting chance I'd say, with it still being challenging.

What do you guys think? Am I being to hard on the party, or should I bump of the difficulty a bit more?

Re: Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

What levels are your PCs? You said the Half-Orc killed 4 Orcs, so while that's promising, if they're level 1 then a contingent of level 1-3 warriors is definitely overkill. Also, what levels are your villains?

As for the campaign idea: they're still alive, so you aren't being too tough yet. If they feel like they're doing epic stuff, you've probably got the difficulty about right. If they feel like they're doing difficult stuff that would result in someone dying if it got too much tougher, the difficulty is almost exactly right. A little variation doesn't hurt either.

Re: Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

My players are currently level 3 or 4, I will have to ask one of them today. And the villain I had in mind would be level 6 if they are level 4. Or level 5, so something not to high up on them, but something that will make them have a form of a challenge. The Orc leader they fought in the fort was about level 3, when they were level 1 and the Half-Orc was actually able to solo him pretty well.

I was considering turning down the level for the the villain though, but since it's a group of about 5 players now I think they could take the level 6.

Re: Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

Sounds right. In my experience, 2 PCs can take on several solo villains of equal level, but die against a large group or something they're not prepared for (eg. a level 1 rogue and fighter facing a ghoul die relatively quickly). Upping the PC count to 5 removes that restriction.

Re: Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

Does the Barbarian have Cleave? And if so, are you basically having the Commoners be a 1-hit, 1-kill kind of enemy? Because if so, you may have the Barb cutting large swaths in the enemy forces. Which is fine, I'm just saying it's a thing that can and will happen if you throw peon-level enemies at them.

Re: Campaign idea, would like some feedback on it please :).

So me and my players played the game last night and they were victorious, although two party members died. One blew himself up with Alchemist fire to take out a group of Orcs, and the other died after being critical striked. But thankfully the other three made it out alright and they seemed to really enjoy it :D.